I was wondering how license key works when you're cloning about 30 PC's? doesn't this mean all 30 pc's have the same Windows XP key? office 2007 key? everything else? is this legal? or should cloning be done to pc's that have volume license only etc, let me know your thoughts, thanks.

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From my understanding of Windows CALs, you must have a valid CAL for every computer and every Office install. If you have volume licenses for XP and Office 2007 and have enough for your number of machines, you are legal.

If you only have OEM or Retail versions, then you have issues.

The basic rule is that you must have a volume license key or a seprate key for every device that you are installing the OS and Office on.

On one project, I built the computers myself and purchased 30 OEM/System Builder copies of Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I used one disk to load up one computer, which I then configured with any other software I needed.

I used Macrium Reflect to create a disk image of that first PC onto a portable hard drive. I then used a Bart PE disk with the Macrium plugin to boot each subsequent PC and load the disk image onto each one. Upon first boot of each machine, I right-clicked on the Computer link and chose Properties. From the Properties screen a selected the "Change Product Key" link at the bottom of the window. After updating the key on each PC with one from one of the other 29 copies I had and registering each PC online, they have been working great for the last two years.